It's a warm, clear evening, and the teen-friendly shops along Kirby Way have either closed or are closing. Foot traffic - and a car or two - heads in the direction of the nearest schools, the tail end of that evening exodus. There's a loop up Sunny Court that heads back towards Steranko Institute that is almost deserted: it runs past a bakery and is popular in the morning, but the bakery closes at 4pm and the route is slightly longer. It is scenic, however, blossoming willows overshadowing the lane.

And Steven is setup with an easel, a palette and canvas. Seated on a stool he studiously stares, and then his free hand dabs a bit of paint off the easel, and then applies said paint to canvas in his effort to paint the scenic view. A faint smile is on his face, mismatched eyes quietly happy as he does one of the things he absolutely loves — art!

Clad in a loose black tshirt, generic blue jeans and some nameless black sneakers, Euiko drifts along the short route from the school, looking about with a subdued, if clinical curiosity. Likewise absent are her ubiquitous pins, likely some literal acquiescence to someone's advice to 'let her hair down', which spills about to her knee. She pauses in front of one of the more visualluy striking shops and studies what she can see through the windows for a while.

Alia is currently walking along, her lips quirked in a faint smile as she has a bag with some rather fresh-smelling baked goods held in one hand. She seems to be enjoying taking her time getting back to campus, instead of just flying to and fro as she probably would normally do. Besides, the flight might ruin the bread!

From the small park off Sunny Court comes a human snarl, a crack of impact, another voice shouting, the whole thing drawing closer as if someone(s) are sprinting streetwards - then an instant where the night seen through the trees deepens into the lightless black of space. Everything returns to normal and silence.

Well…that didn't sound good. Steven's reverie is broken by the sounds of shouting and snarling…and then nothingness. Setting aside his paintbrush and art supplies - and yes, Euiko is in the picture - he looks around to be sure he's not observed as cobalts lines of force appear over his body in a faint glow, and then he floats up into the air in a high arc over where the negative flash occured in a game attempt to see what the heck was going on! His 'tekedar' is fully active, mapping the area around him as he goes, just in case.

The sudden manifestation of darkness catches the corner of the Asian girl's eye and she moves away from the building a bit as she looks around for a discernable source. As sound reaches Euiko's ears soon after, she narrows her eyes a touch and ducks into an alley to pull her simple blue-grey hood over her features, allowing little but her eyes to be seen. Thankfully, she managed to get that horrid herbal concoction out of the fabric. She begins to scale the wall to unobtrusively gain the high ground.

Alia blinks at the darkness manifestation, and she starts glowing a little bit, as she looks mournfully at the fresh baked goods she bought, "Oh, I'm going to lose this, aren't I…" She glances back and forth, trying to see what exactly did happen.

It's difficult to see anything through the trees, but there are flashes - forms moving, plural? Voices drift from behind the trees in rising converse, just loud enough for an eavesdropper to hear.
"Guess the little bitch isn't completely cowed." The speaker has a tenor voice, but it's hard to make out anything else from the pitch.
"Maybe we should kill her." A gravelly alto. "I don't agree with the call here."
A snort. "Are you crazy? We can't get away with that."
"We say it was an accident. She got out of hand … which is true."

Reaching out with his tekedar, Steven actually gets a hit — one, singular, ping. So either the source of the shadows and sounds is a nutter with some sort of shadow or illusion powers, OR the other people down there are out of phase. Either way — he lands a few yards from the individual he was able to teke-ping. Light blue and dark blue (respectively) eyes turn towards the figure he sensed, and then Steven smiles. "Hey…are you okay?" Hopefully he didn't just out the target of the venomous words.

A cursory lookaround not affording her much in the way of information, Euiko creeps geckolike back down the shadows of the wall's side to one of the nearby trees and continues over the branches to the far side, still searching for a source.

Alia hrms and sets her bag down, then she suddenly turns a brilliant ruby color as she overhears the conversation. Quick as a flash, she's flying over towards where she heard the voices, her body already transformed into her light form as she doesn't quite say anything yet… wanting to gauge the situation before blasting people in the face.

As one grows closer - or busts in …
Two individuals stand under a massive oak. Both are in dark camoflague. The man is tall, athletic, dark-haired - and visibly diffused, his outline blurry and indistinct. The rippling of the bark behind him almost seems to imprint against his skin. His right arm dissolves completely into a long, snaking tendril of shadow. The woman is slight and small, kohl-colored hair worn long, her form wholly solid. Also unlike her companion, she's not masked, an olive-hued, patrician face evident in the shadows.
Their apparent victim is curled up three paces away - and also partway melted into shadow. That and the copper-red hair are the only features visible.
And unfortunately, the person Steve addressed? Is the woman, and when she speaks, she's obviously the owner of the alto voice who advocated a permanent solution. "I am," she says, "but you won't be, if you don't turn around and -" about, apparently, to say 'walk out,' her lips twitch. "- fly out."
Then Alia flies in, and the more diffuse figure lifts his left hand over his eyes. "Turn the light off, would you?" The distended arm snaps about, snapping like a weapon - obviously ready to lash out unless the unwelcome guests retreat.

Landing, Steven interposes himself between the crumpled figure and the two shadowy ones. "So…do you two know Evil-Lyn Prieto? You have the same sort of arrogant swagger and darkness powers. Plus you seem to think that issuing threats is a good way to start a conversation." Touching down, a field of shimmering blue energy halos about him even as the Blaschko's lines on his body glow brightly. Eyeing the man as he readies for battle. "I am Chimera, and I don't really think you should push this any further." A hand is raised, and then the shadowy man finds himself GRABBED — despite his intangible state. Grabbed, and immobilized. "I could crush you, you know." Steven offers with a quiet and icy tone.

"Child," the woman says, voice oddly soft now, "you really don't want to do that." Her hand lifts, and a wave of hazy black force slams into Steven, driving him a few paces to one side. He should stagger into the tree; instead, the energy warps down his form and his leg goes through the wood, landing deep inside the bark - the limb as intangible as the darkness around.
Then the force releases and Steven's leg solidifies again, the wood slamming into his leg as physics has a field day. He wrenches free, but with a plating of bark still wound around - and into - his skin.
"If we're exchanging introductions," she continues briskly, ignoring the opening question, "You can call me Muire. This is Burke. We don't hold with fancy labels."
Burke twitches against the pin, then throws his weight backwards, twisting - an impressive effort, but not enough to affect the telekinetic grasp. "I think you'd find me extremely hard to crush. Is there any particular reason you're throwing your weight around, or are you just bored?"

The moment comes as Muire is putting the oogity on the nice man that Euiko chooses to act. She explodes from the foliage in a graceful parabolic arc of inhuman performance and comes down on the woman with lines of white light trailing from in fingers. Her sheering caress doesn't make but a minor cut into her flesh before the asian bounces a couple yards away. She turns on her final landing and makes an eerie kata-like motion, tracing a sygil of cutting light into the air, her eyes narrowed behind it.

Alia hrms, "Evil-Lyn? With the gaunt nature of all those supposed surgeries she's had, I would think Skeletor is more appropriate." She apparently knows a little bit of pop culture after all, as she looks at Muire. "And you think things have gotten out of hand? You don't know the half of it." A beam of crimson light roars from her fists, blasting into Muire who looks dazed for a moment, but quickly shakes it off.

"Well…yeah, she probably has more in common with Tammy Faye Baker than anyone might find comfortable, but Skeletor just doesn't play on her name right." And then he looks a little closer at the fallen figure, and is about to glare at the woman when she causes him some very extreme pain. Hey, he's stubborn, but he's not THAT stubborn - Steven screams as his leg is force melded with a tree. Looking to Burke, he shakes his head, teeth gritted fromt he pain. "Not bored, that's a friend of mine. Bored? Not hardly, if it wasn't for douchebags like you two I would still be enjoying the night." And then he smiles. "So…as I've clearly outworn my welcome…" He looks to the fallen girl, and grins to Euiko and Alia. "We'll definitely talk later." And then even as he drops his grip on Burke, he wraps that mental grasp around Liv (though a lot more gently) and LEAPS into flight. A high arc over the building, then he twists and dives down to weave 'nap of earth' between them to try and break line of sight. And the lad is BOOKING!

Burke recovers easily, landing in a crouch. "Is there a statute in the city that says you have to give up your powers when you reach the age of majority?" he inquires drily, regarding the combatants … and then his head snaps up as Steven streaks away. He swears vociferously. "Muire?"
Muire is circling away from Euiko, her motions slow and graceful. "On it," she replies briefly, her eyes unfocusing for a moment - flushing black, pupils, irises and all. A subtle pulse of force rushes outwards, rippling around the trees, splitting whenever it encounters something solid. She shakes her head, her eyes clearing. "Out of range," she reports.
"Grab the alien," Burke says. "We need something to show for this, and - she might be useful."
She nods once, spinning towards Alia - though not putting her back to the figure who attacked her from out of nowhere, either. Diaphanous pulses towards Alia, shoves her into the upper branches of a tree - limbs within limbs, leaves within veins, except there's no need to diffuse a figure already composed of energy. Instead, Alia's form grows heavier - for only an instant, but long enough that leaves and branches rip through her body like a multitude of knives. The alien manages to pull free before becoming entangled, but she's definitely reeling.
Burke's arm comes around like a whip, a sudden snap-and-snarl of force - sensed more than heard or seen. It lashes up, a blacker-than-night tendril that whips down Alia's arm with only brushing contact. It does no damage, but leaves tiny dark barbs pressed into her, coruscating with the light. "You want to keep the martial artist off me?" he suggests to Muire. "I can hold this one."
There is a flutter of motion from Steven's battered passenger. "What … the hell?"

The martial artist moves again in a flurry of activity. She leaps at Muire again, though in a shorter arc, tracing more of her cutting lines against her person, though to little true effect. Her sneaker's sole shears loose into the furrow her sudden pushoff gouges in the lawn as she launches herself in another vector at her boyfriend to give him a touch of affection, as well.

Alia's eyes blaze, and she actually looks to be glowing a brighter red, "Hold me? Your mistress couldn't hold me, dishonorable cur that she is, you think you could do better than her?" She then lets loose with a blast of crimson fury, the bolt of light knocking Burke for a loop as she does not look happy. At all.

Surprised and pleased that he got back to school so quickly, Steven doesn't waste any time — he flies himself and his tethered passenger to the infirmay, and leaves Liv there, no doubt to the surprise of the staff. Turning about, he streaks for the exit, and then moves all out to get back to the fray. A tight little smile as he returns, and then he makes a clutching motion with his right hand, cobalt energy sheathing Muire, and applying crushing force. "I'm back, did you miss me? I bet you did."

Burke grimaces, crouching low as he attempts to recover. "Mistress? The only mistress I have is -"
"Don't be crude," Muire interrupts. She is looking decidedly strained, but even while wrapped up in a telekinetic hold, maintains her cool.
"Why not? You've been one of the boys as long as these striplings have been alive."
She laughs, a throaty sound. "Point. Get me out of this."
Burke huffs out a breath, the arm-slash-whip writhing on the ground … and then dissolving into a rising cloud of midnight, actually sucking the darkness away from the earth as it swirls around Steven, tearing at flesh - and coming away, even after the shadowy figure strains himself for a second effort, without more than faint lines of blood.
The barbs in Alia's arm cut deeper, their toxic sting worse than the first blow, then fade away into nothing.

As all manner of unpleasant assails the two shadowfolk, Euiko tenses her limbs in preparation for an all-or nothing to try and break the man's hold on the other girl. She hops in and her hands dart across his silhouette at various points, the trails of her fingertips passing through shadowflesh and bone and divorcing notable sections of same from the whole. It's only as she hops clear that the effects are made abundantly clear by gravity and the pressure of various fluid humors.

A growl, low and throaty as the darkling energy digs furrows into his skin, and destroys his shirt and wrist watch. And then Steven looks /mad/. "You psychotic BITCH – you had him try to kill me!" Mismatched blue eyes blaze with fury, and then he sneers contempt. "Clearly you're cut form the same cloth as Evil-Lyn — but that's okay, you can't help being a waste of pseudolife. At least Liv has the balls to stand up for herself, and be more than what she was made from. You? You're not even worth the lint in my pockets, lady." And then he quite deliberately squeezes…clamping down on her with punishing force until he's sure she's unconscious. A part of him wants to keep squeezing, but then he shakes his head, articulating the though his sister speaks into his mind. "No, then I'd be just like her." The force abates, and the shirtless lad looks to the girls present. "You two okay?"

Euiko lowers from her combat stance, which, admittedly, was looking a smidge dodgey after that last flurry, as Muire is taken care of. She steps lopsidedly back toward the sole of her shoe, leaving Kibbles-n-Bits to cool behind her as she answers, "Hai." She crouches to collect her errant footwear and, "Liv-san is oh-keh, yes?"

Alia nods towards Euiko, rubbing her arm a bit where that venomous shadow bit into her, her glow dimming as she resolidifies. "I hope so." She glances over to Steven, "A bit hurt, but nothing serious. Are you alright?" She lets her gaze linger a bit on the shirtless teen, before grinning faintly, "Liv had better be alright." She eyes the two unconscious villains, her grin fading.

"Definitely…I got her back to school, dropped her off by the infirmary." Steven answers, and then floats down to offer Euiko his hand. "Steven Moore." He introduces himself. To Euiko's trained eye he's had a little formal education in fighting, but not much. And there's something a little off-putting about him, something not quite in focus, though it isn't terribly obvious. He returns Alia's grin, even going so far as to strike a heroic pose — which looks patently silly on the lad, he's not at all beefy, he is in decent shape though. "Promise, she's all right. Heck, lets go back together, I can give you a lift if you want…" This to Euiko.

"I em Euiko Tani, it is nice to meet yew." Euiko replies, though she takes a moment's pause to consider the offered hand before she uncertainly meets the offer with her own. There is a once over of the fellow before she glances to her other comrade in arms, "What were yew using? It seemed to hurt them." Best to know in case something like them comes up again, after all. She does give him a nod o the offer with a reflexive, "Hai, douzo." followed by a more considerate, "Yes, please."

Alia nods, "And I am Alia s'Harien. Or Lumina, if you prefer." She smiles faintly, "I need to pick up my bread, if the squirrels haven't stolen them all already anyway." She sighs a bit, "We really need to do something about that woman." With that, she glows a bit, but doesn't dematerialize as she flies off to retrieve her package.

Someone must have called in 'a disturbance' - even if the park was sheltered, it wasn't so far off the beaten path as to hide all sounds of burgeoning conflict - for sirens are headed this way … so whatever decision is made on the fallen pair will need to be soon.

With Euiko's permission, Steven surrounds her with a field of cobalt energy, liftin her and himself into the air. Frowning, he looks to the fallen villains. "Can't prove they did anything — no vicitms, no crime. In fact WE might be arrested for assault." At the sound of the sirens he sighs, and then grins as his gaze lights upon a dumpster behind a local bar. "I have an idea." He bows to Alia. "A pleasure to meet you formally Alia s'Harien…yeah, I go by Chimera too." A grin as he floats over to that dumpster, and then with a flick of his mind the two villains are shoved deep inside the putrid and rank thing, their bodies, hair and clothing covered in foul glop before he rises over the building with Euiko tethered and floating along with him. A moment to gather his art supplies, and then he flies back to the school at Alia's side. "Great job guys…sorry I bailed, but had to get Liv out of their reach, you know?"

"it is oh-keh, sempei." Euiko replies a might awkwardly, apparantly not accustomed to moving under someone else's power. As Alia zoomes off to save her prize, the freshman looks to him and asks, "You know they will want revenge, yes?"

Alia nods, "They'll be coming back for revenge or not. But if they are unthinking foes, so much the better." She returns quickly, pacing the other two as she smiles, "I've met their like before, as have you I imagine, Chimera."

"I have, actually." Steven says en route to campus. "Liv invited a number of us to visit with her mom — well, things went south, her mom and some of her goons kidnapped us. The net result was they got their base trashed, Steph and I were nearly separated, and there was a lot of harshness on both sides. This thing is far from over, and so is that one."

Euiko makes a point of finding out what her comrades were using on them, as it likely presents more enemies for her list. It's in the nature of lists to grow, after all, watered or not. As Alia joins their flightpath again, she retries, "What did you hit them with, Ahriasharen-san?"

Alia nods, "Yes, I was there as well, though I made my own way out." She smiles over at Euiko, "I can channel light into blasts of destructive force, as well as other constructs. And fortunately, my bread was unharmed."

Steven nods. "I know, I was more telling Euiko." A chuckle. "And I beat them up with my brain…oddly I can't sense them when they're desolid like that, but I can still grab 'em if I can see them. I haven't figured that out yet, but there you go." Shivering a little at the chill up high, he is quite happy to get back onto school grounds, and releases Euiko once their safe inside. "Guys…seriously…thanks for the help. I would have been boned if you two weren't there, no question. And that means that Liv would have been too." And then he sighs. "For now, I'm going back to my room to get a new shirt and to bandage these." He looks at the wounds.

A momentary pause as Euiko considers that, then, "Light… hai, thank yew…" after the trouble with the first choice, she settles on, "Rlumina-san." Her eyes close and a shiver runs through her frame as a ripple of silver traves the lines of her tattoos. There is a brief flash from the palms of ehr hands, but that's it. She opens her eyes as they come in for their landing and she bows once her feet are on solid ground again, cradling the sole of her sneaker in the crook of her arm, "Thank yew."

SCHOOL RUMORS

Rumors float around Steranko Institute, bits and pieces of something that happened last night - Steven Moore streaked in pell-mell with a burden, then darted back out. A glowing trio of Alia s'Harien, Euiko Tani and Moore returned to the school, the former somewhat battered. Liv Prieto is in the infirmary; apparently school staff had trouble getting her to re-materialize to treat her. Police also responded to the scene of a disturbance - the phone call reported shouts, flashes of light and inverse waves of darkness - to find nothing there but wrecked foliage.